


A Psychological Analysis of Supernatural Characters

by drwhogirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 11:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7359313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drwhogirl/pseuds/drwhogirl





	1. Sam Winchester

Whilst Sam underwent a demon blood detox we saw 2 different parts of his psyche represented by various characters from within the series. We were allowed to see this in the form of his hallucinations.

The superego (Freud, The Ego and the Id, 1923) is a person’s sense of guilt and moral standards. It was first represented by Alastair. Alastair used torture as a way to punish Sam for his various “sins”.  This would make sense as Alastair is well established as a character who enjoys other peoples’ pain and given it’s own way the superego would punish him for every little thing he did wrong.

A younger version of Sam was also used to represent the ideal self (Freud, The Ego and the Id, 1923). He represented everything Sam had always wanted out of his life. He was there to reprimand Sam for all the things he’d done to throw away his dream life. From leaving Jessica to drinking the demon blood.

Mary however represented the Id (Freud, The Ego and the Id, 1923). She encouraged Sam to drink more of the demon blood because it made him feel strong and would make him feel better than he was during the detox. It could also be a sign of the Oedipus complex (Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1905). Seeing as the Id is responsible for sexual instinct and Sam’s took the form of his mother. The unconscious is a reservoir for disturbing childhood memories which are kept away from the conscious mind to allow an adult to function in everyday life. That is why Mary is shown as she was moments before she burst into flames. Sam was only 6 months old when that happened and his unconscious would have supressed (Freud, The Ego and the Id, 1923) the memory.

The superego voiced it’s opinions one last time in the form of big brother Dean. It was one last attempt to get Sam on side. Unfortunately it failed due to Mary’s informing Sam that Dean was “weak”.

When Sam was six months old his mother was burnt to death. With his father barely around at this critical period where a strong attachment is formed (Schaffer & Emerson, 1963)his attachment was, instead to his 4 year old brother Dean. Because Dean was the only constant in young Sam’s life he learnt to imitate and admire his older brother as he grew up.

Harlow’s (Harlow, 1958) studies showed that whilst a fair amount of food and money for food came from his father, it was always more likely the attachment would be formed with his loving and affectionate older brother rather than the distant and distracted father.

Bowlby’s theory of attachment (Bowlby, 1952) stated that a child needed the continuous care of their main attachment figure for the first two years of their life otherwise it would lead to irreversible long term consequences. These include delinquency, affectionless psychopathy and intellectual retardation. Whilst Sam arguably does suffer from delinquency he, as a general rule, doesn’t have the other two. This could be because when the bond with his mother (or possibly father) was broken it was instantly replaced with a strong attachment to his brother or another alternative is that the attachment was always between Sam and Dean rather than Sam and a parent.


	2. Castiel

In the DSM-IV there is a list of criteria to show whether or not someone is Autistic. They must meet at least 6 of those criteria (2 from the first column and 1 each from the other 2) to be classed as such. The angel Castiel could be seen to have some of these traits. He has trouble relating to other people and doesn’t always respond to others and sometimes seems to lack interest in other people. He very much struggles with making conversation and his imagination is practically non-existent. As an angel he also has a preference for order and sameness. This is demonstrated by his tendency to wear the same outfit pretty much every time we see him. He is also fascinated by anything human that he doesn’t understand. Taking great interest in John Winchester’s journal for example.  
Whilst it isn’t considered to be a valid hypothesis, the cold parenting hypothesis (Kanner, 1943) could explain Castiel’s condition. He had no mother and his father left him and his siblings, however as none of his brothers or sisters are autistic that doesn’t seem to fit.  
The biological explanations don’t really hold any water with Castiel as the body he is in isn’t his. His vessel, Jimmy Novak, isn’t autistic so it can’t be down to genes or neurological correlates.  
Another more viable theory is he lacks theory of mind (Baron-Cohen, 1985). This means he struggles to understand the world from someone else’s point of view. This means he doesn’t understand when someone uses a metaphor it is meant as a comparison rather than being a true statement of fact. An example of this is when Dean made a joke about God being on a tortilla and Castiel took it rather literally. Responding with stating the fact that God “isn’t on any flat bread”. There was a similar example with Sam where Sam mentioned that they had a “Guinea Pig”, referring to himself as a test subject but Castiel thought he meant there was a rodent in the bunker. There was also an occasion where Dean mentioned Bugs Bunny and Castiel assumed he was referring to an “insect rabbit hybrid”. There are 3 different tests for the theory of mind hypothesis. These tests are: The Sally-Anne experiment (Baron-Cohen, 1985); The Smarties Tube experiment (Perner et al) and Comic-strip stories (Baron-Cohen, 1985).  
Baron-Cohen’s Sally-Anne experiment is completed with dolls. One doll called Sally and the other Anne. The researcher then goes on to tell the participant a story followed by a question. The story is about Sally putting a marble in a basket and Anne moving it to a box when Sally leaves. The participant is then asked if Sally will look for the marble in the basket or the box. If they say the basket, then that shows they have theory of mind. However if the response is the box they lack theory of mind and have assumed that Sally will know because they do.  
The Smarties tube experiment works in much the same way. The participant is shown a Smarties tube and asked what they think is inside. They will reply with Smarties. When they are shown what is actually inside the tube they see it is in fact pencils. They are then asked either what they originally thought was in the tube or what their friend will think is in the tube. If they have theory of mind they will reply with Smarties however without the answer will be pencils.  
The Comic strip stories involve the participant arranging the card in the correct order for the sequence of events. If they manage to get all the pieces in the correct order it shows theory of mind. This is quite good as it allows the researcher to put the participants on a spectrum based on how many were right or wrong.  
The Central Coherence Deficit theory (Frith, 1993) was created by Frith to elaborate on the Theory of Mind. Central coherence deficit is where someone can’t process something by general meaning, only by the meaning of the individual parts. On the one hand this could relate to Castiel’s difficulties when it comes to reading other people’s mood and facial expressions. He would focus on one part of the face rather than the face as a whole. It would also explain his inability to enjoy PB&J because he could only taste individual molecules not the sandwich as a whole. On the other hand it also allows him to be able to plan tactically as when he’s commanding an army he can see each individual angel and what they’re doing, allowing him to plan with more accuracy than his opponent. This theory was investigated by Shah and Frith the participants were asked to produce a geometric design with small patterned blocks. The autistic participants performed exceptionally well completing the puzzle correctly and in less time than the control group. This is good because: several studies support this theory; it explains behaviour that others can’t and it isn’t deterministic (meaning it is possible to have both a lack of central coherence and another factor both cause the autistic behaviour). It is often coupled with Theory of Mind to try and explain autistic behaviours.  
Failure of executive function is the inability to plan activities and pay attention to some things but not others. Whilst I do not believe this to be an issue for Castiel it needs mentioning to ensure all basis are covered. The Wisconsin card sort (Grant & Berg, 1948) is often used when testing this. The Participant is shown a card and told to sort it into a pile according to colour. Then they are asked to sort cards according to shape. If they have a failure of executive function they would continue to sort according to colour rather than shape whereas someone who can function normally would easily be able to switch between rules. The theory of failure of executive function explains some of the symptoms of autism and is supported by research findings. It also fits well with our understanding of working memory and does not contradict any biological explanations.  
The Cognitive explanations don’t really explain the cause of autism. Instead they show how people with Autism think differently to those without. As a result of this they could be easily coupled with biological explanations.


	3. Chapter 3

Despite his mother’s assurance of the contrary we are fairly sure that Ben Braeden is in fact Dean Winchester’s son. Despite there being very few physical similarities their personalities are almost identical. Ben’s behaviour is unlikely to be learned behaviour as his mother’s behaviour is almost completely different to his own and Dean’s. This implies that his behaviour was genetic rather than learned.  
This could be down to his brain structure. The brain is separated into different lobes which are the: Frontal lobe; Parietal lobe; Temporal lobe and Occipital lobe. This is called the Localisation of brain function. The Frontal Lobe is responsible for motor processing and higher thought processes. The Parietal Lobe is responsible for processing sensations from the skin and muscles of the body. The Temporal Lobe or Auditory cortex is involved in processing auditory information whereas the Occipital Lobe is in charge of visual information leading to it also being called the visual cortex. Krupa’s study involving rabbits focused on the importance of the cerebellum. The rabbits were conditioned to blink when they heard a certain sound but once a drug was used to impair the cerebellum’s use they were unable to follow the conditioning until the drug wore off.  
The Broca’s area in the left side of the frontal lobe is responsible for the ability to speak. Damage to this part of the brain can cause speech to be slow, laborious and lacking fluency. Wernicke’s area is responsible for speech comprehension. Damage to this area causes a lack in understanding what others are trying to say and causes them to produce meaningless speech.  
Lateralisation of function is the left and right hemispheres having different functions.


	4. Dean Winchester

From a very young age Dean was told his younger brother Sam was his responsibility. He didn’t always take it very seriously until it almost got Sam killed. This could be seen as a form of punishment. When he went out to play games rather than looking after his little brother it allowed the Shtriga to gain access to their motel room and his brother. This could be seen as a form of punishment where his failure to follow a certain behaviour almost lead to the loss of his younger brother.  
Negative reinforcement, as part of operant conditioning (Skinner, 1937), was also used in Dean’s early childhood, he was made to feel that the only way to gain his father’s approval was to do a good job looking after his brother and hunting. As a result he worked very hard to focus his life on those two things, to the point where even after his father’s death they remained his sole focuses. This can be compared to the Skinner box experiment. Except in this case rather than a starved rat there was a young boy starved of love and attention and the food (or affection in this case) is more often than not, not supplied as reinforcement. Unfortunately what Dean didn’t know until later life is that the way to get his father’s love wasn’t being good it was in fact to act out and rebel like his younger brother did.  
Dean is known to have a fear of planes which brings to mind the work of Watson and Rayner who would scare a small child (Little Albert) every time they saw a white rat in order to condition the fear into the child. It’s possible that Dean might have used to like planes until he saw one of the many programs about plane crashes or heard about one from his father or a newspaper. Freud however would argue that it was something that was linked to Dean’s father and was the result of an unresolved Oedipus complex (Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1905). However that is more unlikely as there is no clear link between John and the aeroplane as he was a Marine rather than a pilot. As a result of Dean’s upbringing and lack of affection from his father, it has led to self-esteem issues in later life. Making him believe that he’s useless and not worth anything to anyone despite how much his friends and family try to prove otherwise.  
A bad experience is connected to one of his other fears however. Due to being attacked and killed by Hellhounds he developed a dear of dogs. This can also be compared to the Little Albert experiment however in this instance it was due to one extremely traumatic experience that Dean became skittish of Canines of any kinds.  
As a young child, Dean shared a strong attachment (Schaffer & Emerson, 1963) with his mother Mary. When Mary died when Dean was four years old it rather damaged the young boy. Not just because he lost one parent but because the other stopped being around anymore. Whilst at the age of four children no longer have such a need for attachments as they do at Sam’s age (6 months) he still needed a parental figure and shouldn’t have been given responsibility for such a young child as his brother. Harlow’s experiments (Harlow, 1958) show how important love is to a young child. According to his studies physical comfort was more important to a child than food and a lack of attachment can cause Antisocial and delinquent behaviour.  
This would explain not just why Dean struggles to hold down a regular job (Bowlby, 1952) rather than resorting to theft or credit card fraud but also why he struggles in some social situations. Because as a child he never had anyone to care about what he thought or how he felt so he learned to deal by himself and on his own terms, even if that coping method is through imbibing copious amounts of alcohol.


	5. Team Free Will

The humanistic approach is based around the idea that each and every one of us have free will.  
Team Free Will are an excellent example of that. Whilst every part of their lives was constructed to lead them to the fight between Michael and Lucifer and the apocalypse they rebelled against what was expected of them and instead stopped the apocalypse from taking place.  
The Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1943) is interesting to apply to the team however as the majority of the time they don’t have much time for sleep and lack all the Safety Needs but protection (which they have in abundance in the Impala’s boot). They do however have the Belonging and Love needs covered between Castiel and Dean’s “profound bond” and Sam and Dean’s co-dependency issues. Dean especially is seriously lacking in regards to Self-esteem needs. As a result of all of this they aren’t capable of reaching their full potential.  
 


	6. Jo Harvelle

Jo Harvelle is a good example of how the people you’re surrounded with as you grow up affect you (Bandura, 1977). As a child she always looked up to her father. She saw him as a good role model and as a result decided that she wanted to be a Hunter when she was older. As she grew up watching the Hunters in Harvelle’s Roadhouse she saw how happy they all were when they completed a hunt and how pleased her mother (Ellen) was when her father came home. For Jo this was a kind of vicarious reinforcement. On seeing her mother’s reaction whenever her father came home she decided that the best way to earn the same love and affection was to be a hunter like her dad.  
For Jo her father was her role model so his death made her, if anything, even more eager to follow in his footsteps and join the hunting profession. 


	7. Gabriel

Unlike most angels Gabriel seems to reject authority. Most angels seem to have what is referred to as an authoritarian personality (Milgram, 1963). This is demonstrated by their blind respect for authority and tendency to abuse power when given it. This is believed to be a result of harsh parenting or receiving overly harsh punishments for disobedience. Punishments would tend to range from death to torture.  
Gabriel however is different to the other angels. As an archangel Gabriel was very high up in the chain of command as a result he was likely of the belief that anyone who tried to order him to do something was not a legitimate authority figure so would tend to ignore it. Gabriel was also supposed to receive his orders straight from his father but due to God’s disappearance from heaven these orders were less frequent and even less direct. This made ignoring the orders so much easier.   
We do know that Gabriel did follow his orders when he was younger but this could have been down to buffers being in place, not allowing him to see the results of his actions.   
During his life Gabriel has acted as both an agentic and autonomous individual (Milgram, 1963). As an autonomous individual he felt responsibility for his own actions however as an agentic individual he felt no responsibility as he was acting on behalf of another person.  
Despite all his powers however he is prone to conformity. When pressured by Sam and Dean to pick a side during the apocalypse he chose to back them. This was likely due to the fact that the brothers were unanimous about what they wanted to do and he felt the need to help.


	8. Lucifer

Lucifer has committed many crimes both by the laws of humanity and the angelic laws in place in heaven. Although it can be very difficult to define what a crime is due to variations between: places, cultures, historical context, age and circumstances it is fairly safe to say that the creation of demons and start of the apocalypse can be counted as a crime by everyone involved. It is, unfortunately, difficult to tell just how many laws the fallen angel has broken. This is due to the inaccuracy of crime statistics (Farrington & Dowds, 1985), many of the crimes were either not reported to the police or recorded by the police. This creates a dark figure. The crimes are often not reported because the victim doesn’t trust the police to take them seriously and those that are reported generally aren’t taken seriously enough to be recorded. Since official statistics tend to be inaccurate and under-represent the actual figures for crime it would be difficult to draw firm conclusions on what he has actually done. As a result a victim survey could be performed, although this does have its own drawbacks such as being solely reliant on self-report methods which can be inaccurate due to both recall and the possibility that someone may lie in order to improve others’ perception of them or to deliberately upset statistics.  
When it comes to the crimes we are aware of we are able to use offender profiling (Pennington & McLoughlin, Offender Profiling, 2014) in order to help find the person responsible. Offender profiling is a method that looks at different aspects of the crime in order to try and piece together an image of the offender’s personality. There are two different types of profiling. The method preferred by the FBI is Typology whereas the British government use Geographical profiling instead.  
Typology (Pennington & McLoughlin, Offender Profiling, 2014) focuses on what type of person committed the crime in question. According to Typology there are three possible types of people: an organized offender; a disorganized offender and a mixed offender. Initially there was only 2 categories but the mixed had to be added by Douglas due to the number of people that didn’t fit with either of the other categories. An organised offender would: plan the crime in advance; targets someone they don’t know; uses restraints; removes the weapon and hides the body. A disorganised offender would do the opposite to an organised one. As a result Lucifer comes across as a mixed offender. If you focus on an isolated incident, for example his murder of the Archangel Gabriel, he displays a different set of behaviour to when he murdered the Pagan Gods at the Elysian Fields hotel. During his murder of Gabriel he was not only murdering someone known it was his “little brother” whereas the Pagan Gods remained unknown to him. He didn’t use restraint at all as with the powers at his disposal there was no need. With all of them the body was left in open view where they had been murdered and he seemed to make no attempt to remove any evidence because he knew it wasn’t necessary. Whilst he clearly planned to kill the Pagan gods it was very clear that he had never planned to kill his brother as he was offered a chance to leave on several occasions, it was only Gabriel’s stubbornness and backing of humanity that lead to his unfortunate demise.

The British government’s method of Geographical Profiling (Pennington & McLoughlin, Offender Profiling, 2014) is slightly more reliable when trying to classify Lucifer. Lucifer would be considered a commuter as he had a tendency to travel across the globe in order to wreak havoc. It does however, in the case of Lucifer, cause issues with tracking him down seeing as he didn’t seem to have a home base from which to work and generally didn’t have an awful lot of in depth knowledge of the places.  
According to the Physiological approach (Pennington & McLoughlin, Theories of Offending, 2014) to theories of offending, offenders are born not made. This means that from the moment you’re born you’re either pre-determined to offend or not. According to Lombroso you can be judged as a criminal based on your appearance rather than any other factors. He called these offenders Atavists. People who had this Atavistic form were supposedly a “throwback in evolution”. Meaning they were seen as less evolved than a regular law abiding citizen. However in the case of Lucifer the only atavistic characteristic he appears to have is the insensitivity to pain but that is true of any angel. This theory is also now highly discredited as Lombroso later confessed that his criteria didn’t even apply to half of criminals. His theory also (due to when it was created) had significant racial undertones and mostly applied to people of African origin. Whilst his theory is now discredited Lombroso is still considered to be the founding father of criminology.  
Sheldon’s somatotype theory (Pennington & McLoughlin, Theories of Offending, 2014) was also based on physiological factors. He categorised people into three different groups: Endomorph; Ectomorph and Mesomorph. The Endomorph was soft, fat and rounded and was generally considered to be social and relaxed characters. The Ectomorph would be skinny and fragile with a shy and introverted personality. The Mesomorph however would be hard and muscular. Mesomorphs are aggressive and adventurous characters, generally considered to be the criminal type. Unfortunately whilst the evidence showed delinquents were more likely to resemble the Mesomorph body type it’s difficult to judge what category people would fall into and as it was a correlational study there is no conclusive evidence as to whether having that body type caused the offending behaviour or the behaviour led to the body type.  
The Biological approach (Pennington & McLoughlin, Theories of Offending, 2014) doesn’t go much further to explain Lucifer’s behaviour as the biology and DNA isn’t actually his but that of his vessel Nick. But seeing as Nick showed no evidence of any kind of delinquent behaviour any biological possibilities seem extremely unlikely.  
The Psychodynamic approach (Pennington & McLoughlin, Offender Profiling, 2014) is slightly more applicable. It's based on Freud's theories of the Ego, Superego and Id. These theories were expanded on by Blackburn in order to be applicable to criminals and criminal behaviour. According to Blackburn there are 3 types of Superego that can cause offending behaviour: the weak Superego; the deviant Superego and the over-harsh super ego. The most likely of these to have affected Lucifer was the over-harsh Superego. This is where the Superego is particularly punitive and seeks out opportunities in which to be punished leading to misbehaviour because of an unconscious desire to be punished. Whilst the unfalsifiable nature of this theory means we have no evidence of what truly goes on inside Lucifer’s unconscious, although he shows no outward sign of guilt or regret except when he murdered his younger brother.  
It is possible that Defence mechanisms (Pennington & McLoughlin, Theories of Offending, 2014) may have played some part in Lucifer’s behaviour. He was very keen on rationalisation. This is an example of Lucifer's attempt to rationalise the apocalypse in a way that Dean would understand. "You know why God cast me down? Because l loved Him. More than anything. And then, God created...you. The little...hairless apes. And then he asked all of us to bow down before you—to love you more than Him. And l said, "Father...l can't." I said, "These human beings...are flawed, murderous." And for that...God had Michael cast me into Hell. Now tell me...does the punishment fit the crime? Especially, when l was right? Look at what 6 billion of you have done to this thing. And how many of you blame me for it?" This is another potential reason for Gabriel's death as he is the one that told Lucifer that he wasn't in fact right and "All this is just a great big temper tantrum" in order to get back at God. To this end he is also using Displacement in taking out his anger at God on humanity. This was also demonstrated by Gabriel who when mocking Lucifer said "Daddy was mean to me so I'm gonna smash up all his toys" to try and make his brother see how ridiculously juvenile what he was doing actually was.  
The Social Learning theory (Pennington & McLoughlin, Offender Profiling, 2014) explanations don’t actually ﬁt with Lucifer as he had no-one to learn the behaviour from. Being the first angel to rebel and act out means that there must have been another reason for his behaviour as he certainly didn't learn it from anyone else as his “betrayal” predates even Adam and Eve.  
Lucifer does, however, conform to Eysenck’s theory of the criminal personality (Pennington & McLoughlin, Theories of Offending, 2014). According to Eysenck the following are all traits of the criminal personality type: quickly aroused, egocentric, exhibitionist, hot-headed and histrionic (attention seeking).

During his time in "the cage" Lucifer was subject to custodial sentencing (Pennington & McLoughlin, Treatment of Offenders, 2014). There are 4 main reasons for custodial sentencing: incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution and deterrence. Whilst this method worked in regards to incapacitation it failed everywhere else. On being released from the cage Lucifer went on to once again attempt to obliterate humanity showing that despite his custodial sentence he wasn't rehabilitated. Whilst it did allow for some kind of retribution it’s a somewhat moot point when he didn’t seem to particularly care and, if anything was made more vengeful by his incapacitation. It also didn’t seem to work as a deterrence because after Lucifer other angels have rebelled from Anna to Uriel. Even our own beloved Castiel was known as a rule breaker and spanner in the works.  
There are, however alternatives to custodial sentencing (Pennington & McLoughlin, Treatment of Offenders, 2014). There are various treatment programmes that can be used, an example of which is behaviour modification. Behaviour modification involves using tokens as a secondary reinforcer to encourage certain types of behaviour. Whilst Cullen and Seddon’s study shows that it does have an effect on the behaviour of the prisoner it appears to only delay recidivism. It could also be seen as unethical as, in order to motivate the prisoners, all non-essential comforts and privileges are removed. As a result a combination of behavioural and cognitive therapy is preferred as it appears to be more successful in the long term.


End file.
